What is integrity?

The people I asked about integrity included CEOs, the middle and senior managers and staff of organisations of all sizes from the private and public sectors, consultants working in the field of organisational development, neighbours, close friends and family. When I asked whom they knew who had integrity I was saddened, but not surprised, at how few leaders, managers or bosses could be named. I can only name two in my own working life---more about them later.

These are the words that my respondents used when asked to describe the people they identified as possessing 'integrity':

• strength of character
• steadfast, resolute, having fibre
• walking the talk, doing what was promised
• authentic, straightforward, what's on the inside is displayed on the outside
• open, honest and direct in their dealings with others
• clear and uncompromised values, and clarity about what's right and wrong
• committed, with the courage of their convictions
• behaviours matched values (congruence)
• principled, honourable, fair, accountable and responsible
• balanced, integrated, whole
• self aware and self-reflective
• mature and wise

And there was congruence between these responses and the various dictionary definitions that I gathered:

Integrity: Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code. Moral soundness. Honesty. Freedom from corrupting influence or motive---used especially with reference to the fulfilment of contracts, the discharge of agencies, trusts and the like. Uprightness, rectitude. The quality or condition of being whole or undivided. Completeness.

For good measure I also included 'integral' and 'integration' in my search for meaning:

Integral: Essential or necessary for completeness; a whole; complete; perfect; uninjured; entire.

Integration: The organisation of the psychology or social traits and tendencies of a personality into a harmonious whole.

Members of my informal focus group discussed and debated whether infamous leaders of recent times, such as Hitler, David Koresh and Osama bin Laden, could be said to have had integrity. They and others like them certainly adhere to a set of values that are clear and well communicated. They also have a clear sense of purpose and the capacity to inspire and lead. I suspect, however, that their influence over others was largely based on fear---and that doesn't count for integrity in my books.

So, for the purposes of this chapter, I will focus on a discussion of integrity and what most of us commonly understand as leadership for good rather than for evil; that is, where there is no intent to harm.

As a leader of a public sector agency in NSW, whether its as General Manager of a local council or CEO of a government trading enterprise, you are responsible for making sure your agency’s services to the NSW community provide the best value possible. The community, quite rightly, expects those services to be provided honestly, fairly and efficiently.

Corruption and other unethical behaviour affect the value of those services and can erode the community’s trust in the public sector.

In its twelve years of research, investigation and advice work with NSW public sector agencies, the ICAC has built up a picture of strong links between ethics, leadership, organisational effectiveness and corruption resistance. We have a number of publications that address these issues.

But, as a busy leader, how do you actually go about getting the ethical tone right in your agency?

Perhaps this short booklet will help. It aims to provide some simple practical information to make your very difficult task of managing an organisation a little easier.

Of course, you are probably already doing many of these things. But you can use this booklet as a checklist and as a guide to where you can get more information and assistance to build on the steps outlined here.

Finally, our role is to support and guide the public sector in its task of building corruption resistance. So please let us know how useful you find this booklet and how you think it might be improved.

What is organisational integrity?

Everyone has a personal set of ethical values, and the vast majority of public officials and staff have positive ethics.

But personal integrity is not really the focus here. With organisational integrity the focus is on forming an underlying set of values for your organisation as a whole and integrating them with tried and true corruption prevention strategies and, in fact, with all the workings of your organisation.

At the ICAC we have found that, when it comes to ethics, employees are strongly influenced by the words, and particularly the actions, of their leaders. That is why we have sent you this short guide – to encourage you to start the ball rolling towards full organisational integrity.

It may sound like ‘yet another thing to do’ in your busy day, but building organisational integrity is more a mind shift, a change in the way your organisation goes about what it already does. The effect is cumulative and ongoing.

How does it benefit you and your organisation?

Organisational integrity has a number of benefits, many of which may not seem related to ethical behaviour and preventing corruption. The main benefit is that an organisation that has integrity will work better, for several reasons: